Identity Agency And The Acquisition Of Professional Language And Culture

With globalization and the ever-increasing migration of professionals, issues related to learning an additional language and culture in professional contexts are prominent in many contemporary societies. Drawing upon data from an extensive research study of internationally educated professionals, this book examines the affordances and constraints to successful professional acculturation, and the relationships between identity, agency, and the acquisition of professional language and culture. The author provides a succinct review of socially informed theories of second language acquisition, and presents a unique analysis of identity and agency that incorporates the work of Erik Erikson and George Herbert Mead with Vygotsky's sociocultural theory and Lave and Wenger's community of practice framework. Given the pervasive problem of the underemployment of internationally educated professionals in many contemporary immigrant-receiving societies, this book makes a timely contribution that not only advances scholarship but also has important practical and policy implications.

This unique work analyzes the crisis in modern society, building on the ideas of the Frankfurt School thinkers. Emphasizing social evolution and learning processes, it argues that crisis is mediated by social class conflicts and collective learning, the results of which are embodied in constitutional and public law. First, the work outlines a new categorical framework of critical theory in which it is conceived as a theory of crisis. It shows that the Marxist focus on economy and on class struggle is too narrow to deal with the range of social conflicts within modern society, and posits that a crisis of legitimization is at the core of all crises. It then discusses the dialectic of revolutionary and evolutionary developmental processes of modern society and its legal system. This volume in the Critical Theory and Contemporary Society by a leading scholar in the field provides a new approach to critical theory that will appeal to anyone studying political sociology, political theory, and law.

This book employs the realm of English Language Teaching (ELT) as a discursive point of departure to explore how individuals, groups, entities and institutions apprehend, embrace, deal with, manipulate, problematize and resist glocal flows of people, ideas, information, goods, and technology. It apprehends and attends to tensions arising from the fluidly local-global construction and negotiation of borders of identity and interaction within a diverse array of contexts and English education therein. These tensions, whether conceptual or pedagogical, may arise in and through governmental and institutional policymaking, teacher training, or curriculum and materials development, and in the learning experience both within and beyond the classroom, as teachers and students engage with course content and each other.

Through several unique perspectives and contexts, this volume contributes to current understanding of agency in second language learning. It includes chapters discussing theoretical, analytical and pedagogical approaches, and will serve as a key reference for researchers of language learning and teaching.

This book is the first to explore the constitution of language learner agency by drawing on performativity theory, an approach that remains on the periphery of second language research. Though many scholars have drawn on poststructuralism to theorize learner identity in non-essentialist terms, most have treated agency as an essential feature that belongs to or inheres in individuals. By contrast, this work promotes a view of learner agency as inherently social and as performatively constituted in discursive practice. In developing a performativity approach to learner agency, it builds on the work of Vygotsky and Bakhtin along with research on ‘agency of spaces’ and language ideologies. Through the study of discourses produced in interviews, this work explores how immigrant small business owners co-construct their theories of agency, in relation to language learning and use. The analysis focuses on three discursive constructs produced in the interview talk–subject-predicate constructs, evaluative stance, and reported speech–and investigates their discursive effects in mobilizing ideologically normative, performatively realized agentive selves.

This textbook introduces the reader to concepts of sociocultural theory, through a series of narratives illuminating key concepts of the theory. This 2nd edition references recent studies that provide important instances of Vygotskian sociocultural theory in second language education and research, as well as questions for collaborative discussion.

At the forefront of research on English language teacher education and professional development, this volume presents new empirical research situated in different contexts around the world, including Canada, Denmark, Israel, Japan, Korea, Qatar, Sudan, and the U.S. It is framed by the volume editors’ insightful overview and analyses of previous and ongoing work in a variety of related domains and an epilogue by David Nunan. The chapter studies are organized around three themes: teacher identity in ESL/EFL teacher education and professional development programs, second language teacher education programs for diverse contexts, and professional development for diverse contexts. All chapters focus on the applied nature of the research and include a section on implications. To provide balance and a range of views, the volume includes both chapters reporting on empirical research funded by TIRF grant recipients and several from invited authors who are senior scholars in the field. This is the third volume in the Global Research on Teaching and Learning English Series, co-published by Routledge and TIRF.

This book considers what is at stake for professionals whose work increasingly involves communicating in linguistically and culturally diverse contexts, and argues for the need to better understand the crucial role of languages and cultures in the modern workplace. With a focus on the experience of multilingual professionals, the author's position is that such professionals, exemplified by those who have relocated internationally, deploy their unique linguistic, cultural and intercultural repertoires in their work. This book examines the ways in which professionals interpret and manage their experience of working within and across languages and cultures in ways that create affordances for them, their professional practice, and those who depend on their knowledge and expertise. It will be relevant to undergraduate and postgraduate students undertaking studies in applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, intercultural education and professional communication in any discipline.